Hello guys again.My name is Dogukan and this is my second SI Lesson.In this lesson i will show youthe guitar scale theory.Lets begin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Minor Scale- Major versus Minor- Building The Minor Scale-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Musical Notes

In music, there are only 12 notes (# stands for "sharp", b stands for "flat") :

The position numbers are also called "tones". Be sure not to confuse them with notes.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overview :

There are a lot of scales, depending on the kind of music you like to play. You might have heard of Dorian, Phrysian,… scales. Since this is a beginners course,we'll just concentrate on the 2 most important scales which are the major and minor scale.They are in fact the foundation of today's rock music.

Before we start with the major scale, you need to know that each song is played in a certain "key". This means the song is based upon a chord (major or minor).

Ex: a song in the key of C major, a song in the key of D minor,…

Mostly, the song even starts with that chord (and often ends with it too).

Examples :"Nothing else matters" by Metallica is in the key of E minor "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams is in the key of D major

Between each note, there’s a "space". That is called an "interval".I’ll call it a step from now on as this is the word that is most often used for it.

Each ½ step represents a fret on your guitar. Each fret on your guitar is a note.

There are 3 basic rules for building a major scale :

-Between positions 3+4 and 7+8 there can only be ½ step (1 fret)-Between notes B+C and E+F there can only be ½ step (1 fret)-Between all the other notes and positions there’s 1 step (2 frets)So, the C major scale is:

-The notes on the open string and those on the 12th fret are the same. From there on, the position of the notes repeats itself.-Between E+F and B+C, there’s only 1 fret (1/2 step)-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Example 2 : D major scale

Since the C major scale was the "perfect" scale, there were no problems with the above rules,everything fitted perfectly. The D major scale is another story. This is the hard part.If you can understand this, you're on the right track. It might take you a couple of times to understand,so don't panic if you need to read this more than once.

The D major scale might contain sharps (#) and/or flats ( b ). This means we have to make some changes to the scale.This is what we call "building a scale".

We start from this : put the D-note as root and continue the notes untill you reach the D an octave higher.

The correct name of the scale we are about to learn is the "natural minor scale" because there is also the harmonic minor scale and the pentatonic minor scale.

But for now I will simply refer to it as the minor scale.Once you know how to build a major scale, with the help of some simple rules you can easily build a minor scale.

Major versus Minor :

Every major scale and chord has what they call "a related minor" scale and chord.This means that when you play a song in a certain major key, you will be able to use the notes of that major scaleto play a song in the related minor key.

Rule : the 6th tone (the note at the 6th position) of the major scale is the related minor of that scale.

As you can see, on position 6 we have the A-note. This means that C major is related with A minor.So when you play a song in the key of C major, you can use the C major scale as well as the A minor scale,since they both contain the same notes.

And since the A is the related minor of C, we can also say that C is the related major of A.

Building the minor scale :

This one is easy ! All you have to do is put the minor note as root and complete the scale withthe same notes as the related major scale.

Of course, the rules we had for the major scale have changed a little.For the steps between the notes, nothing has changed, there's still ½ step between B+C and E+F.The only thing that has changed is the position of the half steps.They are no longer between 3+4 and 7+8, but now they are between 2+3 and 5+6.

Knowing this, you can also start by building the minor scale to get to the major scale later.You just need to know that the related major is always on position 3 of the minor scale.

Tip : to remember all of this, just keep the C major/A minor scales in mind.They are easy to remember since they have no sharps or flats. Since it's the perfect scale,you immediately know where to put the ½ steps (between B+C and E+F).

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